


We Are Moments;

by agelade



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Epistolary, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Poetry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 07:53:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3167249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agelade/pseuds/agelade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of shorts originally posted at my tumblr.  Minific, poetry, letters to his brother, episode reactions.  Unconnected, except that they more or less comply with canon, as most of them are direct reactions to canon.  If you're waiting for the "completed" tag, please note that each chapter stands on its own as a story and that this series will likely never be marked "completed."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. you made it;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9x23 reaction; Dean POV, 2nd person narrative. Dean comes to understand something essential about Sam.

**you made it;**

 

you wake up and your brother is sitting in the corner of a room in the dark

you wake up and he is shaking his head, and you are pounding inside black and red and he has done something you just  _know it._

a week goes by; he is still sitting in the corner of a room in the dark sometimes.  others he walks his body around the compound, out where you can’t see him unless you follow, out among the leaves and he hasn’t said a word.

you meet in the kitchen; he’s thinner and he tries to leave when he sees you’re in there already.  you block his path.

 _what did you do_? you ask.  he shakes his head.   _what did you do_ , because you feel black and red and you heat up in the shower until you think you’ll burst and everything is vivid and crowley won’t pick up your calls—

he shakes his head again, but you bully him back until he hits against the seat of a chair and has to sit or stumble, and he chooses to stumble or he doesn’t manage to sit; either way you catch his arm and he closes his eyes at how close you are to him.

 _nothing_ , he says.  it isn’t true, and you didn’t expect him to say anything else, and you can’t even muster the passionate anger you think you should have, just red and black and heat like always, and you let his arm go before you can burn it.

 _sam_.

_you were right, i was wrong. it doesn’t matter. it doesn’t matter._

he tries to turn away, duck away, he hasn’t gotten what he came for, the kid is skin and bones.  you sit him back down and make him a sandwich, and he stares at it dull-eyed and doesn’t even touch it.

but he doesn’t get back up either.

 _it matters,_  you say.  something matters.  it has to matter, because that’s what sam  _is_.  things  _matter_  to him.

 _no_ , he says.  and he looks up and he’s done, blinking slow, engine idle, he smiles a little.   _you’re alive.  be mad if you want. it doesn’t matter._

 _i’m not mad, jesus_ , but you aren’t really sure  _what_  you are, so it could be a lie.

a week more and the heat has faded, the red and the black, and in that week sam has lost more weight and jumped into every fight and shielded you from every harm that has come for you, and now he is laying in the corner of a warehouse with a bullet in his arm from a hunter who has tracked you and he says,  _three more days until you aren’t throwing off demonic signs anymore_.

he’s stable and he consents to lay in bed for those three days if you promise to stay put yourself, and when you try to sneak out to check out the wendigo a state over, he’s already standing in the door, bag packed and panting.

you put him to bed and you promise and this time it’s for real, because he’s pale and he’s determined and it dawns on you as you sit and watch him drift off that he will do this until he is dead.

he’s up for breakfast in the morning and you’ve made eggs and toast and bacon and he gives it all the eye before sitting down and making an attempt.

eventually, you say,  _why_?

sam puts his fork down.  he’s finished halfway through his eggs, bacon untouched.  he doesn’t look up at you when he says  _because i have to go first dean.  i’m wrong to try and i’m wrong to let go, so i have to go first, and you have to let me.  if you love me at all, let me go first._

you watch him get up and leave the room.  you watch his eggs go cold.  he will do this until he is dead, keep you alive, his life reduced to a point. 

your fists in his coat when you thought he’d bought you back from hell; your fists in his mouth when you thought he’d left you to rot.  and you have known, of course you have, that he hasn’t been right since that church where you realized your missions were very different.

this isn’t sam, dull eyes thin shuffling slow man running ragged with a bullet hole in his arm and no lowered brows of consternation no mouth full of tight reprimand no halfeasy grin of the mid-investigation curveball.  even angry, you’d take.  even heartbroken, you’d take.

this thing?  is not sam.  you can’t take it.  but you made it.

and he will do this until he is dead.

**[tag to 9x23; companion to "to my brother, when he wakes;"]**


	2. to my brother when he wakes;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam POV, tag to 9x23. A poem and letter to his brother.

**To my brother, when he wakes;**

There are things I have said, and I stand by them.  
That is me there in those words.    
That is me there, saying these are my principles and please—  
let me hold to them.

Think of them some time.  When you are on the side of the road and—

When you need to remember how well you are loved,  
Remember the principles I desperately needed to hold true to  
And how I let them go, as I let everything go,  
And how I break myself, as I break everything else,

For you.

**[9x23; companion to "you made it;"]**


	3. Untitled (It's been two weeks)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tag to 9x23. Short narrative, Sam POV. Sam has done what was necessary.

It’s been two weeks, and Dean is up and around again, and Sam can tell he’s figured something out by the way he slinks around the room, that  _I know you’re hidin’ somethin’_  set of his shoulders.

The cuts have healed, just raw pink scars, over his eye, down one cheek.  The blood in his veins does not buzz does not call to Sam, does not linger sulfur sour in the back of his throat with need.

Dean is alive.

"What’d you do?" he growls, prowls around the other side of the table in the kitchen.

Sam shakes his head.  “I can’t tell you.”

"What happened to  _same circumstances_?”  Dean sneers as he says it, but it’s a defense mechanism.  It still hurts.

Sam lashes back at him.  “You were right, okay?  I couldn’t just let you die.  I couldn’t let you be a demon.  I couldn’t.  Happy?”

"What.  Did you  _do_?”

"Nothing you need to be concerned about."

Dean advances, but Sam doesn’t move from where he is rooted.

"Look Dean, it’s not the same thing at all.  You’re fine, okay?  It’s me, it’s my body, my soul, and it’s a done deal, and it’s —"

"Sam," Dean says, and the anger is there, it’s always there, but he’s all panic and worry now.

"You didn’t deserve to die Dean.  Whatever you’ve done, you didn’t deserve that—"

"And you do?"

Sam closes his mouth, looks down.  This isn’t how Dean is supposed to react.  He’s supposed to take a swing.  He’s supposed to throw something.  He’s supposed to just assume—

"Sam?  Sam you don’t deserve— Don’t tell me you believe that!  Come on!  I meant what I said in the church—"

"I know you did," Sam says, confused, but if Dean thinks this is his fault because Sam somehow didn’t believe him— He nods in assurance.

"Then how can you possibly still think—"

And it dawns on him.  “Dean.  You  _agreed_  with me in the church.  I screw up, and thank you for pledging to stick with me anyway, that’s nice and noble of you, but it doesn’t somehow clear the scale just because you’re willing to put up with me.  I’ve made mistakes, and I have  _never_  been able to save you, and — just  _once_ —” He has to take a breath, because he hadn’t planned to talk all this out and it’s coming in a rush and he can’t see straight.  “Just once.  Let me save you.  Please you have to leave this alone, you  _have_  to.”

Dean is stricken.  He’s shaking his head.

Sam still doesn’t move.  “I get it if you… I want you to live a long life, Dean, but believe me, I get it if you don’t want to.  Go ahead, you’ll end up in heaven for sure.  I’ve seen to that, just in case.  And I’ll be there too, in your memories.”

Dean looks up.  “In my memories?  But—”

Sam frowns, eyes wet.  “Don’t look for me, okay?”

"You’ll be in hell, right?  Sammy no, no."

"It’s not the same.  It’s not what you got, it’s not what I got.  I’m… this was always my destiny Dean.  Everything will be set right!  Everything that’s gone wrong for us, everything that blew up in my face by trying to deny it— everyone else who might die because I lived.  Dean—"

"No.  No, Sam.  Tell me what you  _did_  and we’ll fix it, goddammit.  You don’t deserve whatever it is either and you save me all the time, Sam you save me just by breathin’, Sam  _listen to me_ —”

"It’s a done deal, Dean."  Sam closes his eyes.  This is harder than he’d thought it would be.  Not telling Dean the full extent of his arrangement with Crowley is hard.  He wants to say  _save me_ , he wants to say  _don’t worry, I’ll be treated like a prince._   But he was lucky to get these two weeks, and who knows the punishment for disobeying the King? 

Dean rushes toward him then, arms around, hands warm on Sam’s back and Sam collapses in, lets his head drop to Dean’s shoulder, takes comfort in the fists pulling at his coat, holding him together.  Dean shakes him, calls him  _bitch_  and  _bastard_  and cries and says  _we’ll fix it we’ll fix it_  and Sam says:

"Sorry Dean."

And then he is gone.


	4. There's a Blade in His Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9x16 alternate scene, Dean POV. The Mark overwhelms Dean in Magnus' lair.

**There's a Blade in His Hand**

Dean is there and there’s a blade in his hand, there’s a blade in his hand and it is pulling for more blood, for something new, for bite for bile.  Dean is there and he feels the surge of hero’s heart inside him, a glory and greatness.

There’s a ringing sound inside him as well, a ringing crying singing thing it calls him.  It rings desperate. 

The thing before him struggles, it’s stained red, it’s bound in iron and it’s struggling, keening, crying out.  It’s a beast, a monster, the blade wants its blood.

Dean leans in close, drinks in the scent of that blood, that monster blood, that creature blood.  His heart is beating in his chest,  _glory— bloody—_

The thing goes still.

"Dean?" Sam says, quiet, close, on a breath.  "Dean?  What are you—"

Sam is still.

Dean breathes slow, everything is slow, red.  He breathes out, an aborted attempt to reply.  Breathes in.  Says, “ _…monster…”_

And Sam breathes sharp and the creature breathes sharp and that ringing crying singing keening comes again, beating against the heart in his chest the dull thud—

"Dean, put it down, Dean  _please_.  You don’t want to do this, Dean—”

Sam stops when Dean brandishes the blade, when Dean brings it close to the monster’s neck, rests the bone-sharp edge against the thing’s flesh, slides the razor just a bit, more red more red a monster’s taint in it and Sam’s voice so soft and still—

"Dean, listen to me.  Listen.  It’s okay.  It’s okay.  I know this isn’t you, I know it. So I’m okay, it’s okay.  Whatever happens, I’m here.  And this wasn’t your fault."

Sam’s here.  Sam’s here.   _Sam’s here._

Dean blinks the thud out of his vision, the slow out of his head.  In front of him, there is a blade against Sam’s throat, blood drips down his neck from it, and Sam is watching him, resigned and wet-eyed.

Dean blinks again.  The room fades back into being.  The lavish decoration, the dead body of Magnus the collector on the floor, Crowley creeping behind a column, and Sam in front of him, bound to a column with iron chains saying, “Dean, it’s okay.  It’s okay.”

"Sammy?"  He’s not sure he’s said it aloud until Sam looks at him like he’s different.  Sam blinks and relief washes down a cheek, a tear or sweat or something, and he relaxes back against the pillar, or collapses back against it, or — God he was prepared to die by Dean’s hand, God no.

Dean throws the blade down like it’s burned him.  “Sam,” he says again.  His knees buckle.  Sam’s do too, but he’s trapped by the chains and his chest is heaving and Crowley makes himself useful and then Dean is surging forward to Sam where he is sliding down the pillar, hands out to check him for injuries.

But he can’t touch Sam.  Sam, now that it’s over, looks almost afraid of him, and Dean vaguely remembers “ _monster_ ,” and he backs up from Sam, who watches Dean flee from him and suddenly seems too tired to do anything but get himself to his feet and prepare some spell—

"Sammy—"

"It’s okay, Dean.  It’s fine."

_Sammy._


	5. Untitled (i told you so)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 9x23, Sam POV, poem. From Sam to Dean, Sam talks about his luck with homes.

_there’s no place like home—_   
_but every time i’ve tried to make a home for myself, it hasn’t ended well—_

_so you kinda jinxed it, is all i’m saying—  
by making me admit it was you_

_i mean i told you so, that’s all i’m saying—  
i told you so i told you so i told you so—_

_in a church by a lake in a confession  
i told you so i told you so_

_every night stumbling blood from kids to counting scars  
i told you so i told you so_

_in a room in the dark out of sight of your bed_

_i told you so_


	6. let me live in this place;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10x05 tag. Samulet feels, poem. Sam POV, although some have said they read it from Dean's POV and it works just as well. Sam hopes the amulet can mask their old wounds.

**let me live in this place;**

let me live in this place  
let me; and if you love me at all  
pretend with me

let the road wander under us  
let the white flowers in the fields surround us  
green and growing stems in our clothes

let the stars turn over us  
let us drink together  
pretend with me

let us bleed like twins bleed  
let us fight like we used to  
light and fast and cleansing

oh let me live in this place  
let all be forgiven  
pretend with me

let a charm hang between us  
let it mask all betrayal  
and deceit and bad faith and your anger

and let me die in this place  
let me die in this place  
let me die in this place

pretend with me, that i am forgiven.


	7. predator stalks its prey; prey succumbs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 10x08 reaction; character death; Sam POV, poem. Sam reassures Dean.

**predator stalks its prey; prey succumbs**

hey, you promised me  
an inch and you’d say  
you were losing you were lost  
and i’d find you

hey, remember the cabin  
that summer the girls  
and the lake and the lake  
no it’s fine it’s just—

hey, i borrowed your shirt  
but i meant to return it  
i’m sorry it’s ruined  
i’m so sorry i—

hey, don’t look like that  
we’re fine now for once i just—  
tell me we’re fine are we fine  
this is nothing

hey, this is nothing  
it’s nothing it’s nothing  
don’t worry don’t tell me you’re sorry  
just tell me—

hey, you promised me  
hey, it’s okay  
it’s just blood it’s just blood  
it’s okay

hey.  it’s okay. it’s okay.  
it’s okay. this is nothing  
just stay just stay with me  
until — no, don’t worry


	8. it's three am;

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mini casefic, mild AU. Demon blood, mid-season four. Written for the 2014 Bittersamgirlclub Secret Santa gift exchange for taremaclay.

**it's three am;**

It’s three am.  A Wednesday.  The cold air bites into them, through their jackets, fog rolls over the fields to either side of the long black road.  Overhead, the moon hangs big, not quite full, shines down cold.

“Sam.”

“I know.  Just hang tight.”

Sam has this all planned out.  It relies on a few things going right, which never happens for them, but he’s gotta make the plans anyway, wait for them to get screwed over by fate or whatever, and then deal with the fallout.  So he’s made the plan, and he hunkers down beside Dean’s beside the car to wait.

They don’t wait long.  The high wail on the wind curls over them, a shiver runs through them both, their jackets pulled close over their chests, but it doesn’t help.

“So Jack Frost’s—“

“Real, yeah,” Sam says, curt.  “One of the oldest demons there is.”

Dean pokes his head up over the back end of the car to check the coast, like that matters.  Sam has told him, but Dean doesn’t trust him—

“You were right,” Dean says, and Sam frowns.  Dean grins at him, devilish, like Sam can’t remember him smiling for years.  “Hot damn.”

Sam peeks over the back end of the car then, and he sees it.  A streak of blue and white and something unidentifiably  _cold_  moves toward them at speed.

Sam spins around and crouches back down, heart racing.   Alastair was old.  Lilith is old.  Jack Frost is  _elemental_.  He gets the knife ready, he’s got a plan, he waits for it to get screwed, he waits –

—and gapes in horror as the sound of rusty broken latin sounds across the land.  The fog bubbling over the fields fattens and darkens and sinks into the ground, soaking it.  His trap is collapsed by a spell this demon should not know, should not have been able to cast.

So the waiting is over, at least.  He grips the knife.  Dean’s got the colt.  With a look, they cue each other, spin and rise to confront the thing, and standing on top of the car when they turn is a boy, barefoot, skin icy blue.  This boy is dead already, and Sam lowers his brows.  The demon always takes young boys as hosts, usually lets them freeze to death during possession, but sometimes keeps them alive – just alive enough to suffer freezing nearly to death for as long as he stays in them.

Dean growls something and leaps, and the boy  _levitates_  out of his reach.  Very  _very_ old demon.  The boy laughs and swoops down on Dean, the colt goes flying, and _Dean_  is flying, up into the air, dangling by his arms as this kid leers at Sam like he knows who Sam is, like he knows what losing Dean would do to him.

“Drop him.”

“On a cold day in hell,” the demon laughs, and Dean grunts as frost covers his fists and creeps down his wrists.

Sam readies his blade, eyes the colt on the ground—

“I wouldn’t.”  Dean yelps as the frost shoots down his arms and his elbows lock in a bent position, frozen.

Sam closes his eyes.  Dammit.  Dammit.  He looks at Dean, tilts his head.  Dean stops trying not to scream long enough to notice Sam’s resolve,  _no_  he says,  _Sam no_ —

Sam drops the blade.  Drops his shoulders.  Clenches his fist—

Jack Frost stops cold –  _har har_ – stares at Sam in shock.  Sam raises his fist; Dean drops to the ground.  Sam spreads out his fingers; Jack Frost shrieks.

It takes time, it feels like it takes forever from inside the red haze where Sam resides in this long moment where it is just him and Jack Frost, the ancient demon, but when he opens his eyes again, the boy is on the ground, Dean is rubbing feeling back into his arms, and Sam is falling to his knees, blood streaming down his face.

A moment later, Dean is catching him as he falls forward, Dean is saying  _Sammy stay with me_ , Dean is picking him up and putting him into the car.  Dean is saying _you were right_ _,_  Dean is saying  _Sammy don’t do this to me, I’ll never – never again just don’t_ —

Sam opens his eyes, Sam smiles a little, Sam says,  _I’m gonna hold you to that man_.  He’s never seen Dean grin so bright.


End file.
